Sharkness ft Abyss & Aurelius
by TheLadyMuse
Summary: Part 8 Of Scherazade


**Filling in a few holes on the Cameron side.**

Aurora growled when her older brother, Marcus, shook her awake.

"Wake up, Aura, Auntie's back!" He urged, and that got Aurora up. Their father might rule the Cameron Shark feral clan as _the_ Aurelius, but everyone knew that he was only holding the seat for their aunt. After all, Amara Cameron was grieving, and none of them would dare interfere with _that_ process.

Quickly changing into her favourite dress, Aurora hurried through the Cameron mansion to find her Auntie. It wasn't hard, since she was slumped in her favourite armchair in the living room. When she finally saw her Auntie for the first time in well over a year, Aurora had to fight a gasp.

Sure, in theory, Aurora had known that her Auntie was swimming in the deep, soaked in salt water at all times, so far beneath the surface her skin would be pale when she surfaced. But this… this was horrible. Milk white skin, smudged black beneath tired, desolate eyes, was the least of the horror. Black hair that had once been Amara's pride had been grayed by salt, the braid Michael had bound it into before she left matted, the tail falling to her knees.

Jaw trembling, Aurora padded across the floor to Amara, asking uncertainly

"Auntie?" Amara's sunken eyes met those of her niece, greeting her softly as she stretched out her arms

"Hey, my girl." Running to her Auntie, Aurora pounced, throwing her arms around her neck. Her nose filled with the smell of salt and the body in her arms was far too thin, but she didn't care. Her Auntie was home.

After Amara came home, she gradually got better, her frame filling out, her skin darkening, her hair eventually regaining it's obsidian sheen. Her shark fang remained around her neck, and the ring she had entrusted to her brother before she went into the deep was returned to her finger.

But she was never the same.

Until James Buchanan Barnes was revealed to be the Winter Soldier, and he threw off the mental programming.

Then Victoria Russell came calling.

**SHARKNESS**

A restless Amara Cameron whipped her head around to the window in the middle of a meeting with her niece and nephew. Her brother, Michael, had left ten years ago after his mate expressed a desire to travel.

Both younger ferals sensed the telepathic hail being sent by what seemed to be some kind of cat feral. They followed their aunt as she got up, rushed through the mansion and threw open the front door as a well dressed women in her twenties raised her hand to knock.

Blowing out a breath, Amara sighed and asked wearily

"What is it, Victoria?" Raising a brow, the other woman replied curtly

"We have cause for a signing of the Accords, Sharkness." Drawing herself up, Amara argued

"I have no interest in-" Victoria grinned and answered

"You do now, but you should sit before I show you." Warily, Amara admitted her former comrade into her home, muttering

"Scheherazade." Frowning, Marcus and Aurora flanked their aunt, disapproving of this ghost of the past intruding on Amara's sorrow. Once Amara and Victoria had sunk into chairs across from each other in one of the smaller parlors, Kiara, one of the maids, delivered tea as Victoria open a telepathic channel, which, after sharp glares from Marcus and Aurora, she expanded to show them as well.

And boy, was it a surprise.

James Buchanan Barnes was alive, a little (a lot) battered, and he'd recently broken the programming HYDRA had slammed on him. Marcus and Aurora were astonished to see the once-splintered psychic bond that connected their aunt to her mate pulse with light, and they heard both sides of the bond exclaim over the renewed bond.

_Amara. _The husky, Brooklyn accent caressed the syllables of their aunt's first name, trembling with fear, which melted when Amara's joyous psychic voice burst out _Jamie!_

Victoria gently guided Amara and Bucky through smoothing out the rough edges of their jaggedly restored psychic bond, emitting a psychic chuckle as she pulled Marcus and Aurora away, cocking her head when they surfaced to the physical world. Rising, she checked Amara's pulse as Marcus and Aurora watched in fascination as their aunt's body relaxed, even with her mind entrenched on the psychic plane.

Tender fingers skimmed Amara's cheek before their owner turned to Aurora and explained

"With Bucky involved, your aunt has cause to sign the Maternal Accords. As Sharkness will be one of the senior signatories, she can guarantee slots to you and a handful of other mutants." Aurora frowned and asked

"What are the 'Maternal Accords'?" Reseating herself, Victoria explained

"Back when Bucky first disappeared, Amara and I agreed that the most powerful women in the world needed a way to make things better if there were problems. We signed the first Accord to search for him, and dissolved it when he was declared dead. We signed the second to try the Brotherhood, and we want to sign the third to try the Avengers."

Blinking, Aurora thinks for a second. She remembered sitting the trials for Mystique, Sabertooth, Pyro and Colossus. It hadn't been overly stressful, but now… She can see why it must be done. If her aunt and uncle are to ever have any kind of peace together, Bucky Barnes needs to stand trial.

Before Victoria, Amara and Aurora leave to sign the Accords, Victoria makes phone calls, Amara sits down with her nephew and Aurora conducts a meeting of the clan. She had retrieved her brothers' vote, and now she consulted the others on what to do about her uncle.

Unsurprisingly, there was a unanimous vote to bring him home, to help him heal so that they wouldn't lose their lady as they nearly had before. Steeling her resolve, Aurora accepts the tattoo designs from her second cousin Ryan Cameron, nodding when the others decide to declare their allegiance with ink.

Amara is surprised but grateful to be offered the turquoise snowflake tattoo, completely taken aback when every member of the clan turns up at the farewell meet with jagged turquoise snowflake tattoos of varying sizes. She's even more surprised and touched when her niece and nephew demand to accompany her, backed by several of the more dominant ferals.

Aurora smugly selects a few more shark ferals and one of the manta ferals to take as part of their delegation, making their way to the X-Jet that came to get them.

**SHARKNESS**

Marcus Cameron, one of the two heirs to Aurelia, the head of their clan, usually goes by the hero name Aurelius, or he had until (thankfully) his aunt returned to become Aurelia again. Now, as he walked into the Sokovian prison, he signs the paperwork as Aurelius, as his aunt had commanded he continue using that hero name, since she had decided to continue using Sharkness.

Grumbling, he bickered with the Sokovian guards until he had custody of the imprisoned Avengers. He then ignored them after chivvying them to his hovercraft. Once in Wakanda, he hurried to his aunt, relieved to find she was truly angry for once in several decades.

Abyss surveyed the heroes on trial, biting her lip to stop laughing. Her aunt, Sharkness, had scolded Iron Man like he was an unruly pup. That had made the other shark ferals snicker, especially when his pup, Darcy Lewis turned up (how did he not realize that was his offspring? Their scents- ah, that was it) with his best friend.

It was a relief when the Primas acquitted her uncle. The way her aunt lit up made her look eons younger. But then, Prima Romania collapsed as the trials finished, and the ferals panicked. Luckily, her Auntie had guessed something would go wrong and prepared them all.

The double whammy of her mate's acquittal and her best friend's collapse was jarring. If she and Jamie hadn't completely restored their psychic bond before this, she would have collapsed herself, Amara acknowledged.

A nudge from her mate on the psychic plane, and she reached for him, closing her eyes as she registered all the things she was feeling. Steve Rogers' sheer disbelieving joy that he had his best friend back, her feral clan, especially her niece and nephew sinking psychic hooks into both her and Jamie to entreat them to live, the other mutants and Avengers unable to grasp the complete acceptance of the ferals.

They would, eventually. It seemed Cyclops had already accepted her niece's mating bond, at least.


End file.
